drug use

[Rachel]

Everyday people make sweeping generalizations about people based on gender, sexual orientation, age, lifestyle, religion, etc etc

For example (not necessarily my opinions):

Jews are cheap.

Gay men know how to dress well.

Old people are cranky.

People who use drugs are a drain on society.

Blah blah blah <enter preferred stereotype here>

And you know, we probably all do know a Jewish person whose cheap, a gay man who dresses well, and older, cranky person and a drug user who is a drain on society. so what? it doesn't, it can't, always apply.

Maybe lurker has a point, maybe the problem isn't drugs, maybe the problem is there are too many idiots and ignorant people. Pair the idiots with the drugs = your stereotype of those who are a "drain" on society.

Pair the feeling of moral superiority and the feeling that only you know the truth and the way and you get someone like .... (thinking of a few historical figures here....fill in the blank).

I guess I need to go plug into the tube so I better understand the different sects of people I am surrounded by. I am sure the DARE program and the "war on drugs" campaign would be pleased that they effectively spread the message (although I imagine they spread the message to the choir, not exactly the audience they were seeking if you get my drift).

[Jim Warfield]

One of the first big-time cocaine users was U. S. Grant, former president and Civil War general. It was a pain killer as cancer ate his mouth and he was trying to finish his personal book about the Civil War so his family could get the royalties from it and have an income, which he successfully accomplished before he died.
The book sold very well, and sustained his family after his death.

One of the first familys in town to get a TV had twin boys , both severely crippled and retarded . My Dad installed their TV antena and marveled at how TV gave these poor kids something to look at as they laid there helplessly.
Of course no one could know then how many healthy, normal people became cripples physically and mentally by watching way to much television over the next 50 years!
Does anybody else miss the old test patterns after sign-off?
I go again speaking in a lost language....."Ah! The old one is rambling again, put more Soma in his broth, that will give us a quieter night."

[lurker]

It is my firm belief that if we still had test patterns on our TVs, at the end of the broadcast day, drug use would be cut in half and tolerance would be the order of the day. The way it is now it never ends. It goes on 24 hours a day. And when you got that much hardcore crap coming down the tube non-stop, us poor jumped up apes have no choice but to draw hard lines and do hard drugs. Our whole society is in a fight or flight stance, and it is all for want of a test pattern at the end of the day.
Move over Jim, I’m bellying up to the soma bar.